


I and Love and You

by BuckyBarnes8999



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Rich Bucky Barnes, Violence, hard angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:36:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21803821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuckyBarnes8999/pseuds/BuckyBarnes8999
Summary: Steve sees something he can't get out of his mind.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 43





	1. Brooklyn, Brooklyn.

**Author's Note:**

> This has some extremely homophobic language. Intense internalized homophobia.  
> You've been warned.
> 
> "Oh Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in. Are you aware the shape I'm in?"

Nobody looked better than Bucky Barnes, not in Brooklyn Heights. Then again Bucky Barnes wasn't _from_ Brooklyn Heights.  
Bucky Barnes lived in The Hamptons. It was a place where two hundred dollar suits, silver watch chains and perfectly pomaded hair was not out of place. Not like it was here.  
He with his quick smile and easy laugh was a magnet to every girl he ever ran into. There were always one or two dames hanging onto both his arms and his every word. And always more waiting in the wings. 

Steve Rogers didn't know why Bucky insisted on slumming it in The Heights. It wasn't like he was unpopular back home, it wasn't like he didn't have an entourage everywhere he went. 

Whenever he brought up the subject Bucky always said the same thing.  
"Well, my best pal lives here and nobody is a fuckin' two faced asshole around here. You Brooklynites are real folks, Rogers. Plus it makes my ma shit kittens when I come back home talking like you." That's what he'd say every time or something to that effect.  
Sometimes he'd lean forward and whisper something cheeky like;  
"Besides, I think your ma's sweet on me. Can't disappoint her can I, punk?"  
And Steve would always playfully punch his shoulder and call him a jerk.

Bucky would fake pain at the punch and Steve would laugh every time and Bucky would always clap him on the shoulder and tuck him under his arm.

He'd been gone back home for a week now that school had started back, Steve missed having anyone to talk to. He didn't really leave the apartment when Bucky wasn't around. There was no reason to. It wasn't like he had any friends and he usually ended up in a fight besides. 

And girls? Forget about that, they never batted an eye at him. Sure if he took out a pencil and started drawing them on cocktail napkins he got attention. It was the same attention someone would afford a cute little brother. 

But when Bucky was there he didn't feel alone even as he was overlooked. The young man radiated enough life and boisterous happiness that everyone felt at ease. Everyone felt like _somebody_ around Bucky Barnes.  
Steve felt lucky as hell to be able to call that man his best friend. 

Now as Steve walked to the corner store, coat pulled high against the frigid cold, he was wishing he'd have listened to his ma earlier.  
"Go down to the corner store for sugar." She'd said. "Go before the sun sets, it'll get cold." She'd also told him not to stop and pour over the newspapers reporting the brewing war. He'd done that too and now he was freezing cold.

He was taking the long way home, he knew it was stupid, ducking through back alleys and side streets. But he didn't want to walk past the dive he and Bucky frequented. He couldn't bare to hear the chorus of:  
"Little Stevie Rogers!"

And

"Hey! Wheres Bucky?"

And

"No Bucky tonight? What're you gonna do if you get into a scrap? Somebody just call the coroner!"  
As he passed. 

A movement, a subtle sound down the alley to his left made Steve turn half in interest, half in an effort of self preservation. Any number of dangers lurked in dark Brooklyn alleys. Mad dogs, winos, thugs. 

What he didn't expect to see was two darkened forms pressed to one another amid a row of trashcans, kissing frantically. He knew he shouldn't stare, but it was dark, it was anonymous. He was intrigued. 

One of the two black shillouettes slid down to their knees. Something looked off, something Steve's mind took a while to grasp. 

_It was two men_

Steve stood rooted to the spot out of shock. 

And then the clouds parted letting moonlight filter down. 

Steve but his knuckle to stifle a gasp. 

The hair, usually perfect was disheveled, the two hundred dollar suit was rumpled, jacket half off. The first few buttons of his shirt we undone and his tie and vest hung loose.  
His head was back against the brick wall of the building, he was biting his lower lip and then his mouth opened in a silent moan, eyes lightly closed.  
His fingers were knotted in the hair of the guy on his knees in front of him. 

There was absolutely no mistaking it.  
It was Bucky. 

Steve's mind was like a malfunctioning machine, the gears were turning but nothing was clicking into place.  
His best friend in the world was down an alley, getting sucked off by a guy.

Steve knew he should move. Knew he should run and never look back.  
Nothing made sense, Bucky was _deep_ into dames.  
He'd seen him necking with them, seen his hand slip up a skirt or two.

It was a muffled moan that tore Steve's rooted feet from the ground.

He ran. 

His lungs ached and his muscles burned. He knew he'd have to take an asthma treatment when he got home but he didn't care.  
He burst through his front door and tossed the little packet of sugar down on the kitchen table. 

When his mother tried to stop him all he had to reply to get her to leave him be was a tight wheeze of  
"Asthma!" 

He slammed the door to his tiny closet-like bedroom and threw himself into the bed. His hands fumbled with an asthma cigarette and matches. 

Once he could breathe again he tried mulling over what he'd seen.  
It was absolutely impossible, it couldn't have been him and yet. . . And yet it absolutely was. He was wearing the damn tie Steve had scraped money for last Christmas. 

He'd grown up with Bucky, they went to mass together at his ma's church. They'd slept tangled up in each other on the couch cushions in the living room floor! 

It couldn't be. There was some explanation. Maybe the other guy was taking advantage? No, no Bucky was absolutely blissed. 

With a frustrated groan Steve pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes til he saw stars. 

He let himself go limp after a while, tears prickled at his eyes but he blinked them back. 

He paid little notice that his hands were subsconciously wandering. He tried to blank his mind to what he was about to do. 

Slowly, his hands unbuttoned his slacks and one shaking hand slid inside them.  
He didn't do this often, the promise of going blind(er) and damnation was always hanging over his head. 

He tried to push away all these implications, all the significance of the way he was bucking into his own hand mere minutes after seeing his best friend debauching himself in an alley. 

He thought of _anything_ but the expression on Bucky's face. The moonlight playing over his shapely lips, the bit of his chest showing. And he _definitely_ didn't think about that heated moan he hea--- _Oh sweet Jesus_.  
Steve's breath came in ragged gasps as he spilled over his hand. It all made him light-headed so soon after an asthma attack.  
He wiped his hand on his almost comically large handkerchief. And curled up to sleep, trying to ignore the leaden knot of guilt weighing on his soul.

The next day was the weekend, which meant Bucky would be over, which meant he had to actually _face_ him like he was none the wiser. 

And, like clockwork, Bucky shows up, right before lunchtime. He doesn't knock, doesn't have to. His million watt smile lit the room a little less brilliantly for Steve who sat drawing at the kitchen table. 

He had a few parcels tucked under his arm, he was always bringing little gifts. Mostly food. Meat more often than not.  
At first, Sarah Rogers had fussed and tried to refuse the gifts but food was oftentimes viewed as a luxury, especially meat.  
And besides, Bucky's reasoning was sound. He ate there, he was loaded and he had it to spare. 

Steve could tell by the butcher's twine that that was what one of the brown wrapped parcels was. A roast by the look of it. 

Mrs Rogers took the things from him and ruffled his hair, welcoming him, telling him how nice he looked in the grey suit he wore.  
"It brings out the color of your eyes." She'd said and he flashed her a smile.

Moving through the kitchen, Bucky lifted the lid off a pot on the stove.  
He inhaled deeply of the wonderful aromas and let out a groan so similar to---  
Steve jumped, banging his knee against a leg of the table.

"Man, oh, man, Mrs Rogers, that smells like heaven. When are you gonna stop resistin' and finally marry me?" The corner of his lips quirked up cheekily as he spoke.

Sarah's warm laugh rang out in the tiny space.  
Steve scoffed a little too loudly. 

"What's the matter, Stevie?" Bucky said as he playfully rounded on him. "Scared I'll send you to bed without supper?"  
He caught Steve around the shoulders and ruffled his hair.  
"Get off, jerk."

"Now listen here, you little punk." He laughed into Steve's ear.  
He was practically draped over him, and didn't move even when Steve elbowed him. "whatcha drawin there, Steve?"  
The hand that wasn't wrapped around Steve's shoulders reached out and angled the paper.  
It was the limited view of the skyline from Steve's bedroom, in painstakingly accurate detail. Right down to the cracks in the brick of the building opposite.  
"Amazing, you could be in galleries." The compliment made the tips of Steve's ears grow warm. 

Mrs Rogers' voice asking them to clear the table for lunch allowed Steve an escape from the prickling feeling crawling up his back.  
He hops up a little too abruptly, almost upends the chair, _almost_ falls backward over it. But as always, just when Steve's about to hurt himself in some way, Bucky's there. 

"Woah now, careful. Jeez you starvin', Rogers?" Bucky held him upright until he could get his bearings. 

"I'm . . . Let go!" The scrappy Brooklynite wrestled himself from the contact he was making with Barnes. 

He stormed off to wash his hands in the tiny bathroom. 

Bucky shrugged his shoulders at Mrs Rogers' questioning look. "Maybe he got into it with somebody, I'll talk to him about it." Bucky promised, carefully clearing Steve's drawing things from the table so Sarah could set it. 

The only temperature of water that came from the tap in the bathroom ranged from frozen to frigid. Steve splashed his face, scrubbing away the pinched look he wore.  
It was just Bucky.

It was just Bucky. Same as it had always been since time immemorial. 

He took a long critical look at himself in the tarnished mirror. His long nose, floppy hair, his jaw could stand a few good licks of a razor. 

His ma calling him to eat drew him back to the present. 

Everything went on. The world went on.  
Sarah laughed at Bucky's jokes and Steve found himself unable resist joining in.

And slowly, over the days, Steve seemed to forget what he saw.  
Their routine remained unchanged. Coney Island, dives, dames for Bucky, fights for Steve.  
Swimming in the summer.  
Abandoned rooftops and talking about dreams, talking about the war.  
When Steve inevitably got sick, they ended up on the couch cushions again.  
They were getting old for it but it was the most comfortable thing. It was the most natural thing to them, a boyhood habit.  
Bucky had once joked that it would be something their future wives would have to get used to. 

But then out of nowhere Tuberculosis happened.  
Tuberculosis happened like an ink black hand reaching around that tiny Brooklyn apartment. Choking the air out til everything was stifling.  
Tuberculosis happened, stripping them of the warm and loving presence of Sarah Rogers. 

Bucky held Steve as he sobbed, helped him pick out her funeral clothes, took care of the bill. He let Steve grieve without the worry of how he could possibly pay for anything weighing on his frail shoulders.

He moved in. It was gradual at first, he'd stumble in drunk, then sleep it off, he'd ask to use the shower and say it was too cold to leave after that. Any excuse until one day he wouldn't leave and was paying half the bills.

It was comfortable and they made due. Steve moved into Sarah's old bedroom and Bucky took the one he'd vacated. 

Some nights Steve would have to cover his head with his pillow because Bucky had brought some girl home. He had to close his mind to a very regular string of.  
"You're so good with your mouth Bucky!" And Bucky's reply every time was "Well you'd not be a good Catholic/Methodist/Jewish/Presbyterian girl if I used anything else." 

They'd always be gone in the morning and Bucky would emerge in his pajamas late in the morning with an abashed grin and lipstick on his neck.

This was one such day like that. Steve sat with his head in his hands at the kitchen table-- somehow it all looked much shabbier without Sarah around. There was a piece of thick paper that Bucky knew all too well the look of in front of him on the table.  
"Rejected again, Stevie?" He reached out and turned the paper, eyes locking on the thick black " **4F** " stamped on it. 

"I'll get in one day, Buck." Steve didn't look up at him and Bucky knew that meant he'd cried about it. 

"So, come on a date with me tonight?" 

The memory of that alley those couple years back flooded unbidden into Steve's mind. He couldn't help but flinch back and stare up at Bucky.

"Look, don't be so shocked, I can find you a date." Bucky was smirking in that cocky way he had.  
Oh.

_Oh._

"And what am I gonna do when this one just ignores me the whole night too?" Steve sighed and let his forehead drop to rest on the table in front of him.

Bucky clapped his hand to his shoulder, it lingered there, rubbing firmly. "Stevie I don't know how girls manage to ignore you. The best parts of you are fascinating. I wouldn't ignore ya if I was a dame." 

Steve's heart thundered in his chest. He stood up and grabbed Bucky by the collar of his pajamas.  
Bucky tensed for a fight he had no clue how he'd triggered, but then, Steve's lips clumsily crashed into his. 

He tensed and pushed Steve back as far as he could in the small space of the kitchen. The smaller man crashed back into the sink. Toppling several drinking glasses to the rough floorboards.

"What the _fuck_ Rogers?!" Bucky exclaimed, scrubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand. 

"I thought---" Steve began, but was cut off.

"What the fuck did you think!?" Bucky's voice was rising in volume and rage. 

He crossed to Steve and pushed him against the sink, it hurt, and now Steve was scared. He'd fucked up. Oh God he'd fucked up. "I'm not a goddamn faggot, Rogers!"  
He spat, there were tears welling and his face and eyes were reddening with the effort to not she'd them.

"I saw you." Steve said in a small voice. Damn he never knew when to just shut his mouth. "In the alley behind Beehan's. With a man." 

Steve's chin was roughly grabbed and he was forced to look at Bucky. "You need to get your goddamn eyes examined again because you're more blind that I thought you were." His hand hurt him but Steve kept quiet. He was without a doubt sure it was Bucky. "My own best friend. I _sleep next to you, Rogers!_ right there in that living room and you're tell- telling me you think I'm a goddamned _faggot?!_ "  
He was failing spectacularly at holding his tears back. 

"You were wearing the tie I bought you for Christmas. And the suit mom liked." 

"Shut up!" He was shaken, there was a something a little broken, a little terrified and overall dangerous in Bucky's eyes.  
"Maybe you're the queer, Steve, huh? I should go tell the fucking cops." 

The fingers on Steve's jaw curled around til two of them were in the corner of his mouth, between his teeth. He couldn't close it now and Bucky's mouth was on his, sloppily, tongue and all. He could taste the salt of Bucky's tears.

This was all so much. Bucky had never raised a hand to him. Now he pulled away and slapped him hard.  
"That what you wanted? _queer_ "  
He manhandled Steve, spinning him around, pushing him hard against the sink. It nearly knocked the breath from the smaller man.  
"Maybe this is what you wanted!?" He reached around and grabbed at Steve's crotch and pushed his hips against Steve's ass.  
"S-stop! Stop Bucky! I'm sorry! I was w-wrong."  
Bucky let him go after pushing him hard against the sink again.  
"You're goddamn right you're wrong." His voice had a hard edge that was tempered by the way his jaw always quivered when he cried. 

Steve turned around, panting hard, Bucky had split his lip and it bled freely down his chin.  
What Steve didn't expect was Bucky sinking down onto the floor and hugging into his legs as sobs wracked his body. 

"Buck. Hey, hey, Bucky, it's okay." Steve sank down to the floor with him. Bucky's arms readjusted so that he was practically crushing Steve's small body to his own.

"It's never gonna be okay, Stevie." He was barely audible between the sobs. "It'll never be okay because you saw me. You saw me, Stevie." 

There were so many emotions tangling together in a mixed up mess inside Bucky. He'd hurt Steve. That was unforgivable sin number one in his book.  
Steve had seen him. How long had he kept this secret. Had he kept it a secret?

"I'm goin back to bed." He abruptly stood and took the untouched bottle of gin he'd stashed on top of the icebox. 

"Okay Buck." Steve responded and readied himself for work. 

He came home to an empty house. Not only an empty house but a house devoid of Bucky's things. 

He didn't see him again til he showed up outside a theater in his uniform, breaking up yet another fight.


	2. My hands they shake, My head it spins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, intense homophobic language and intense internalized homophobia. Also suicide attempt mention.
> 
> You've been warned. 
> 
> Join my discord if you like! https://discord.gg/93Bstcv

The edges of the hole left in Steve's life by the absence of Bucky Barnes were ragged and torn at best. And at worst it just felt like the hole consumed Steve entirely.  
Every aspect of their lives were so intertwined that that there was nothing that wasn't affected. 

Hell, Brooklyn missed Bucky Barnes. 

Steve had tried going to Beehan's once or twice but it felt empty, even on a Saturday night when the place was packed. The clustered tables were suddenly dirty and the dancefloor looked scuffed. The warm light of gas lamps seemed dull, and barely illuminating. Bucky Barnes' absence was like a vacuum that sucked up all the warmth and joy.  
Steve wasn't the only one who felt it.

Yeah, Brooklyn missed Bucky Barnes

And when Steve drew, everything turned into a sketch of Bucky.

Bucky how he remembered him on the beach at night in the middle of summer. 

Bucky sitting on the edge of a rooftop, long legs dangling over, head tilted back in laughter. The way the moonlight played over his skin.

Bucky in his best suit sitting in the park. Eyes closed contentedly in the sun.

Bucky the way he looked when he ate sweets. The reverence he held for sugar. The way his eyes glazed over in rapture at the expensive European chocolates he'd brought from home.

Bucky asleep with his hair a mess and his lips slightly parted.

Eventually people stopped asking after Bucky when he passed them in the streets. They all ignored the way Steve who used to be a stand-up, head high kind of guy, even for his size and health, seemed to hunch his shoulders to the world now.

His life became filled with single-minded survival. Go to work, sleep. Remember to eat.  
Don't get into a fight, Steve.  
Pay the bills.  
_For chrissakes Steve don't get into a fight_

It eventually came down to; Man, Steve, you didn't pay the gas, don't get sick. You'll not get well. You'll freeze. Please, don't get sick.

Don't get sick

_Please, Steve, don't get sick_

When he inevitably _did_ get sick it was hard to shake it.  
It was twice as hard because Bucky, who had been a paragon of health and vitality wasn't there to spoon feed him soup or curl up in the living room with him. He wasn't there to impart upon him anecdotal wisdom about the finer points of living-- good spirits, good women and good food-- or share his warmth.

Maybe that was just one of the harsh realities of the world. That nothing goes on forever. Sarah Rogers sure didn't last forever. So, it stood to reason that Bucky would end too. 

But Steve had thought, deep down burning like an ember in him since he'd met Bucky, that he'd be with him til the end of the line. 

Now, as they stood awkwardly six feet apart from one another behind the theater, Steve couldn't help but acutely feel somehow betrayed by Bucky's sudden presence. 

Why was he here now? 

Who was he to chew him out about lying on an enlistment form? 

Who exactly was Bucky Barnes to smile at him like that? A smile that was only for Steve, a smile that would have made the skinny young man's heart skip a beat just months ago. 

Steve wiped the his bleeding lip on the back of his hand but didn't take his eyes off Bucky. Then, then it all clicked.

"You got your orders?" Steve said tensely, shifting his weight on his feet.

Bucky's cocky expression flickered for a moment, revealing something, apprehension, perhaps or---and Steve pushed the thought from his mind-- fear.

"107th. Sargent James Barnes, shipping out for England first thing tomorrow."  
They stood a moment, tense, awkward. 

"I should be going." Steve said, dropping his head.  
His chest was getting tight, he felt his pockets for his asthma cigarettes just in case. 

Steve was left wondering if Bucky had been actively looking for him. Had he come to say goodbye? 

A surge of anger welled up in Steve that had him shrugging Bucky's hand off when he clapped it to his shoulder. He was tired and angry about the whole situation. He felt abandoned and betrayed.  
And for what? Bucky's sins? His pride? His perversions?

Why was Steve the one who had to be punished for all that?

"Stevie, I---"

"Don't call me that." Again Steve pushed his hand away when it touched him. 

"Come on man, it's my last night." Bucky was trying very obviously to be charming but it left a bitter taste in Steve's mouth.  
It bothered Steve that Bucky was still so exuberant when he felt so world weary and worn out. 

It struck Steve then, that Bucky had indeed been just fine without him. He'd been walking around New York, happy as a lark and Steve had nearly died of the common cold. He'd nearly died of loneliness. He-- he had no resolution to their fight. To what had been said, to what Bucky had done. 

He was wounded, betrayed.

"Step off." Steve tried pushing past Bucky but was caught in his firm hands. 

"Stevie it's my last night and I'm trying my damned best to tell you something!" He lightly shook Steve's shoulders, trying to get him to listen. 

"No, no, Buck. You don't get to decide to do this now. I don't want an apology. I wanted you. I wanted my best friend!"  
If there was one thing Steve hated it was that when he got well and truly angry he cried. His hands gripped onto Bucky's wrists and tried to shove him off but Bucky held firm.

"Steve! _Guys die over there._ " He was backing them up slowly, deeper into the corner. "I might not come back." 

That killed every bit of the fire in Steve's gut.  
He suddenly had this hopeless feeling that he was really and truly about to lose his best friend.  
It was one thing to live day to day knowing someone's out there walking around fine without you. But Bucky possibly dying? The thought that he'd never see him again, regardless of them being on good terms?

His hands were shaking now, trembling even. "Bucky." His name was like a plea. 

Bucky was shaking too and it became worse when he tilted Steve's chin up. His eyes, the exact color of the sea after a winter storm, searched Steve's for a long moment. 

His lips were warm, pliant this time when they pressed to Steve's mouth. It wasn't like the violent, accusatory thing Bucky had done to him all those months ago in the kitchen. 

Bucky was bigger than Steve, and it had never been more evident than now. The way Bucky tucked him against his body, keeping his head tilted just so. 

For a long, long moment, Steve just stared blankly ahead, fists clenching at his sides.  
But he let him, he didn't fight. He let him kiss him.  
What he did resist was closing his eyes and leaning into it. He resisted raising his hands, twining his fingers in Bucky's short, well groomed hair. 

Every fiber of Steve Rogers' body was telling him to pull away, to run. This was wrong. This was a man. This was _sin_.  
This, this was exactly what Bucky had roughed him up over.

When Bucky pulled away Steve finally found his resolve and pushed him back, hard. "What're you doing, Buck?" 

"Saying goodbye." He stated with a grim finality. 

Goodbye.

_Goodbye?_

The punch was thrown before Steve knew he was even making a fist.  
Shockingly, to both men, it connected squarely on Bucky's mouth.  
Bucky stumbled backward, the facade of cockiness and charm shattered like glass. 

"Stevie. . ." He wiped his lip.

"Go suck eggs, Barnes. You don't get to do this! You're not a faggot, remember?" Steve shoved him again and he reeled back, against the alley wall.

"I'm not!" He insisted feebly.

"No? Then what are you playing at because I sure don't get the joke." 

A long silence passed, Steve was tempted to leave, to walk out of that alley and say to hell with Bucky. But he wanted to hear Bucky defend himself, he wanted to hear if he _would_ defend himself.

"Listen. Steve." Bucky adjusted his uniform, straightened his hat. The facade was rebuilding itself. "Let's just forget all this. . . I'm sorry, okay, I'm sorry. What do you say we go to Stark Expo? I have a couple of girls lined up and----"

"Why do you even try, Bucky? Why all the girls?" Steve was resisting shoving him again. 

It took a long while for Bucky to answer. Partly because he wanted to pick his words carefully. Partly because these words, these thoughts could undo him. Could take him right apart in a most irreparable way. 

"Because, Steve, I have to. Not just as- as a hobby or as a pastime. It's vital for my _life_ that I keep myself neck deep in girls. It's vital for my _survival._ Do you underst-stand?" Along with the edge of strained tears in his voice, there was that dangerousness in his eyes again. That same wounded, caged animal look that he'd had that night.  
He advanced forward, his sure steps made Steve back up til he was against the wall again.  
Bucky stood practically looming over Steve.  
"Guys like me don't have the option, Steve. How many times have they fished some queer out of the river? Scraped their brains off sidewalks and---- and nobody has any sympathy. Not even their own goddamn mothers, Steve! Faggots have it coming, right, Steve?" 

Bucky shoved Steve roughly against the bricks. "Right, Steve?"

"Isn't that what they say?" It was strange, suddenly Steve just couldn't look Bucky in the eye. "It's not natural."

"Exactly. So, Steven, I have to keep that never ending string of girls in my bed. Dozens of pretty dames I can't even get my cock up for!" His voice was a low, heated whisper. "and if I get back from this goddamned war, I'm settling down with the first girl that falls in my lap. And I'm going to make my parents proud, and I'm gonna do _exactly_ what I'm _supposed_ to do." He punctuated each word with a poke to Steve's shoulder.

Steve was having trouble processing what Bucky was saying. Who didn't want to find the right one and settle down?  
What was so pressing about the obligation?  
What was he supposed to say?

Oh, you'll find the right girl, Buck?

Was there one? That was what Bucky was saying, right that no girl was right?  
That he was without a doubt--

"Are you ashamed?" Bucky's voice brought him out of the swirling and confused mix of thoughts in Steve's head. 

"What?" 

"Are you ashamed of me? Or is it that you're looking back on all the time you spent with a faggot and feeling sick down in your soul?" Bucky's hand rest on Steve's slightly protruding sternum. "Right here where I lay my head when we sleep on the floor. Do you feel like you're all up in knots? Or like you wanna beat the tar out of me? Run screaming from this alley, find the first cop you see?"

It all clicked into place.  
"Bucky." Steve gripped the other man's collar, rumpling the uniform he wore. "You realize you a-- you-- _you attacked me_ for kissing you in my kitchen. Or did you forget my kitchen like you forgot me? Did you forget there might have been at least one person in the world that really needed you?"

"I---"

"No, shut up! You left _me_ , Bucky." He shook the bigger man. "I could have died and you'd never have known. You never-- I!" Steve suddenly choked and gasped. "I-- Bucky I can't--!"  
That tight feeling that had been building up in Steve's chest since they'd started talking reached it's climax. He couldn't breathe. "Bucky." He managed to gasp out. His hands were scrabbling to find his cigarettes. 

Steve tried to fight him as Bucky lowered them both to the ground. He sat Steve firmly back against his chest and took the cigarettes the smaller man was fumbling with and about to scatter on the ground. 

Bucky lit a match and lit the cigarette himself before putting it between Steve's lips. "Breathe, Stevie. Please." 

The warmth of his back on Bucky's chest was simultaneously achingly comforting and enraging. 

As Steve took a long pull from the medicated cigarette Bucky rubbed his chest.

"I wasn't fine, Stevie." Bucky chanced to say once the worst of it was passing. "You're acting like this didn't kill me. You're acting like I'm not in a very public alley in the middle of the day trying to tell you how I feel. Like . . . Stevie I- I couldn't face you. I couldn't face you knowing what I am. I couldn't face you treating me different."  
Steve felt Bucky's chest begin to shudder against his back. Bucky was soundlessly crying from deep in his gut. 

Steve's barely perceptible flinch when he wrapped his arms tightly around him cut Bucky to the quick. "Jh-- just like this." He sobbed. "W-would you flinch away ev-- every-- every time I touched you? Would our routine st-stop? Would our friendship turn into just this cold thing? A dead th-thing that just resembled some ghost of what we'd had?"  
His hat toppled off as he buried his forehead against Steve's neck, pressing his bloodshot eyes to Steve's shoulder. 

Steve was having trouble processing this version of Bucky. He'd only ever seen him cry like this once, when he was thirteen and his grandmother had died. The way he'd broken down in the kitchen didn't even compare to this.

But. . .

That's kind of what this felt like didn't it?

The death of something? 

"Steve I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've ruined this. I just wish I was dead, Stevie. Then the implications of Bucky Barnes being a goddamn faggot couldn't hurt anybody." He let his arms drop and leaned back against the brick wall. "I tried to drink a whole bottle of laudanum . . . But I guess I'm just unlucky enough that it just made me sick." 

What? 

How was Bucky telling him this so casually? 

Then something clicked in Steve's brain. A light suddenly turning on.

"You aren't planning on coming back." He tried to tell himself the hitch in his voice was a residual effect of his asthma. "You're going over there to die." 

"Kill some Nazis, serve my country. Nobody will be ashamed of me. I won't hurt anyone else." 

"You'll hurt me."

"Oh come on, Steve. You're fighting with yourself right now. You're trying to decide if you hate me, or want to wring my neck. You're trying to not run." 

He was, that was true but he was fighting other feelings that bubbled up thick and heavy in his gut.  
Bucky didn't know what to expect when Steve turned around, sitting in the fork of his legs, fully facing him.

"I'm trying hard not to sock you one, Barnes. Are you so wrapped up in yourself that you don't realize this whole fight started because _I_ kissed _you_? We could have struggled with this whole damn thing together, you twit." 

He found himself kneeling up. His lips pressed slowly to Bucky's. 

Bucky's hands came up, he seemed to be struggling to decide wether to pull Steve in closer or push him away. His hands made fists in the air as twice he almost touched Steve, almost knotted his fingers in Steve's hair.  
When it was perfectly clear that Steve was intent on this, Bucky finally let himself pull him in closer.  
His heart was beating so fast he wished he could turn it loose at the race track and bet on it. 

God, he wanted Steve. He wanted him out of those clothes. He wanted to take care of him he, he-- but he wasn't allowed to want that, was he? 

His negative thoughts kept getting displaced by things like:

Holy Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Steve's lips are soft.

Is this the first time Steve kissed anyone?

Was Bucky his first kiss at all? 

He jolted when he felt Steve's tongue slide against his lips. 

His hands left Steve's hair and slid down to his back. He let his lips part for Steve's insistent tongue. 

It was so clumsy, more teeth than necessary, shaky but absolutely incredible. 

When Steve pulled back to breathe both men were flushed brilliantly and Bucky was breathing just as hard as Steve.

"I'll go to the expo with you, Bucky. Don't expect me to be happy about this girl who's going to ignore me. But let's try to have fun." 

They were on their feet then, straightening themselves out, fixing rumpled clothes, trying to calm down. 

They left the alley as two men who definitely weren't dizzy for one another. 

Bucky was loudly talking up the virtues of the girls they would be taking out that evening. His description included their measurements and how they wore real silk stockings. That they didn't just draw the seam up the back of their legs with an eyebrow pencil. 

It wasn't a bad conversation. It wasn't strained or forced. Bucky was a good actor. 

The only time his emotions surfaced was when Steve disappeared in the middle of Howard Stark's demonstrations. He cursed as he saw the Recruiting sign. 

They fought again. The difference being this was an old fight, one they'd had since before the war really started. 

Their heated discussion was interrupted by their dates--- Bucky's dates--- calling out to him.  
"Hey Sarge are we going dancing?!"

He turned and smiled at the two women who in all honesty did indeed live up to Buck's description. 

"Why yes we are!" He then turned back to Steve.  
"Hey, don't do anything stupid til I get back."

"How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you." 

Bucky sighed, almost forgetting himself for a moment. He hugged Steve almost too tight almost too intimately.  
"You're a punk."

"Jerk." Steve breathed out. "Be careful."

"H-hey." Steve called out to Bucky's retreating form. "Don't win the war til I get there." 

Bucky's smile was tight and sad when he gave Steve a little salute. 

Then he was gone through the crowd, and Steve was about to have his life changed immeasurably.


End file.
